My Name is Sky

I didn't know Sky, but I feel compelled to share her story. It could have happened to any of us.  Reading the words she wrote before her death, at only 27 years old, shook me. There were so many similarities in our stories. There always are in the stories of the victims and survivors of domestic violence. Always.

In writing her story, Sky hoped to change the law in her home country of Canada, to expand the protections for people suffering abuse in intimate partner relationships. The police and the law let Sky down. Had she been able to get a restraining order to protect herself from her violent, abusive ex partner, she may well have been alive today. She was left completely at the mercy of her deranged ex.

If you are reading this because you have concerns that your own partner is being abusive towards you, maybe you will recognise the signs of coercive control in Sky's story. 

No one deserves to be abused within an intimate relationship. I hope that anyone who is struggling to understand the situation they are in and who does recognise the signs that they are being abused will find this post helpful and find the courage to seek help towards becoming free of abuse.

 

In Memory of Sky September 11, 1995- December 12, 2022 

For those of us close to Sky, the pain has been immense and complex. Though these words and this post are to honour her life and not our loss.

She had a story to share, and as her friends we want to fulfill Sky’s legacy. We would first like to memorialize who she was as a human.

Her heart was as big and bright as her smile. She went through so much healing and growth in her lifetime, gifting her with deep compassion and empathy for others. She was wise and incredibly intelligent.

After graduating high school a year early with a double dogwood, she attended Camosun College and completed the Education Assistant and Community Support program. She went on to work for several years as an Educational Assistant in a life skills classroom. She was a supportive advocate for those in her care.

She returned to Camosun College, completing first year studies in Electrical, Mechanics, Heavy Duty Mechanics and Carpentry. She received an award for the highest overall combined theory and practical marks. In these male-dominated trades, she used her voice to speak up against sexism, misogyny, racism and homophobia, that harmfully occurred everyday.

 

During the last year of her life, she took on a community support role at the Cool-Aid Society. She wholeheartedly engaged within her community; She held so much space for those she connected with and made folks feel truly heard and seen.  Beyond work and education, she loved to go for drives, be in nature, forage for mushrooms, camp, have fires, go out to dance and see live music, as well as regularly playing tabletop RPG’s with friends. She did a lot of self learning and knew so much. She was creative and expressive. She valued time in her own company and time spent with friends.  Those of us who were close to her, have memories of who she was as a friend. She was kind, funny, genuine, generous, fun, loving, supportive, caring, understanding, as well as everything else mentioned above. We have memories of fun adventures and shenanigans, laughter, love, hugs, time together in nature, sharing in happiness and successes, and supporting each other during the darkness. She meant a lot to many people. She was an incredible and inspiring woman who impacted the hearts of all those she connected with. We’re missing her here with us so much and words aren’t enough.  Sky also endured abuse and trauma in her life by the hands of family members, who were supposed to be her care-givers as a child and keep her safe. In the last 10 months of her life she was trapped in an abusive relationship. She did not deserve the pain and suffering she experienced. No one deserves any abuse. Yet this is an awful reality for so many people, an experience that is far too common.

She attempted to reach out to police for support and protection, but because there was no concrete evidence, she was left vulnerable and in fear. She ended her life to escape an abusive relationship.

Sky was a passionate advocate for the Moose Hide Campaign, an indigenous led organization in support of ending violence against women and children.

During the last week of her life, she typed a document titled “My Name is Sky”, that she wanted to be shared. Her hope was to bring awareness to Bill C-202 ‘An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (controlling or coercive conduct).

So much hate, harm and hurt in the world. It feels hopeless, though for the love and life of Sky and the many who can relate to her story, we have to stay strong. Be an ally and a voice, stand up and speak out. It can’t be done alone, we need to connect and be in community to have any hope for change.

Our hearts are heavy with grief and sorrow with the loss of Sky. We love and miss you endlessly, sweet soul.

 

Sky's Story: My Name is Sky

My name is Sky, I am a 27 year old female in Victoria BC. My childhood wasn't exactly white picket fences and I was placed into foster care at the age of 12. I went on to graduate high school a year early and then took the Community Support and Education Assistant program that eventually lead me to working with youth with diverse abilities for several years in a life skills program. I then went back to college and took four separate first year trades programs, Automotive, Electrical, Carpentry, and Heavy Duty Mechanics. Next I became employed as a Mental Health Worker which is what I have been doing for the past year. However, that is not what this story is about, this story begins 10 months ago. This is not the story but rather my story and I say that because I recognize that everyone has their own personal truths based on their own perceptions. That being said my story is based entirely on facts and truth and I will try my best to refrain from injecting my emotions into this recount of events.

On the evening of January 5th 2022 I began talking to a man on a popular dating app. In the early hours of January 6th he suggested we go on our first date to Mount Washington to go snowboarding. He picked me up about an hour later and we went and spent the day together then returned to Victoria. Over the next few weeks we would meet up frequently, usually with me going over to the place he was staying at. During that time, we were both attending the same college for different trades programs.

On February 11th he had his last day of class and two days later he would be returning to a town a few hours away where he resided. On the evening of February 11th while we were in his truck he told me that he wanted to be with me, that he was going to quit his job and move to Victoria in a few months to be with me and asked me if I would be his girlfriend. At this point I was completely smitten with him and was more than excited to be his partner, he promised to call me every day and that he would move to Victoria as soon as he could.

Two days later on February 13th he left to return to his home town and when he arrived he sent a text saying 'I did some thinking on my drive the only thing I would change about you is your last name'. I was elated, I had met a wonderful man and I couldn’t stop telling all of my friends and coworkers how happy and hopeful I was. Over the next several months I would take a bus to his home town for a night every couple of weeks to see him. On either March 21st or 22nd we had posted our relationship on a social media platform. On March 23rd I received a Facebook message from a woman telling me her friend had slept with him that previous week, I sent my partner the message and he told me that it was not true but rather it was a friend of his ex girlfriend and that his ex girlfriend was upset to find out he was with someone new and had asked her friends to send me messages saying he was cheating. On March 25th I received a message from his ex girlfriend saying 'Just so you know I was in (insert my partners name) bed when you were on the phone with him the other day so hopefully you have the open relationship he's always wanted and good luck he cheated on me the whole relationship'. I showed this message to my partner as well, which he again denied the accusations. March 26th I got another message from a different female claiming to have slept with him, and again another from another person on March 27th. He denied all the allegations stating that it was just a ploy from his ex partner to have me leave him.

At this stage I had no reason to not believe him and I replied to all the women saying that I trusted my partner and that I believed he did not do the things they were claiming. Finally, he had finished his time at his place of employment and was ready to move to Victoria and move into my apartment until we found a new one together. I wanted to start our cohabitation off in a fun way and booked two cabins for us to stay at from May 3rd to May 6th. After our little retreat we came back to Victoria and began living together on the afternoon of May 6th. At the time I was living in a 900$ all inclusive studio apartment that was directly across the street from my place of employment and very close to my friends. We decided to apply for an apartment that was older but was only a 7-minute walk from my work since I don’t drive, it was close to my friends, and it was a decent price.

On June 20th we left for a road trip to the interior of BC to visit his family. While on this trip I received an email from my work with a job posting. My partner encouraged me to take the job because at the time I was working 6 days a week, 12 hour shifts and he told me he didn’t move to Victoria to not be able to spend time with me. He told me that although I would be taking a more than 50% pay cut to my income that it would be what was best for our relationship and that because he made 'good money' I wouldn’t have to worry financially and that we would pay for our new apartment equitably based on our income. I applied for the job and ended up getting it.

During that trip my partner ended up doing cocaine for three days straight from June 23rd until June 26th. I began to see a side of my partner that I had not yet seen, he began making belittling comments and had a few angry verbal outbursts directed at me. On the morning of June 26th he was in tears and began profusely apologizing to me. At first I thought he was apologizing because we had an agreement that he was only going to do cocaine one day of the trip, but as the morning went on he continued to apologize without saying what for. Eventually I asked him if something had happened after I had gone to bed the night before, that was when he told me that he had an addiction to cocaine and that just prior to moving to Victoria he was spending approximately 600$ a week on this habit. I asked how I could support him and he said he didn’t want to get any support at that time but that he was going to stop doing it and that he wanted me to just ask him every day how he was feeling about his sobriety.

On June 27th we were headed back to Victoria, he told me he was going to drop me off at home then head to his old home out of town to help a family member and he would be back in Victoria the following day. That was when I told him that since he was not going to be home that evening I was going to see some friends at a pub to watch a live band. He then told me that I had misunderstood him and that he was actually going to be home with me that night and that if I wanted to go to a pub that I wasn’t the type of girl he wanted to be with and that we 'wanted different things in life'. He then told me we were broken up.

A few hours later we got to the ferry terminal and as we waited for our ferry he went into the terminal and I sat in the truck separating our belongings into our respective bags. A few moments later he came running out of the ferry terminal, opened my door and apologized saying the he loved me and wanted to be with me and that he would do better and that he had only broken up with me because of the multiple days of cocaine use.

On June 30th we received an offer for an apartment at the building that we had applied for, and that same day I received an email from my landlord at that time saying that he received a call as a reference for another apartment and stated that he didn’t want to lose me as a tenant and offered my self and my partner an apartment in a different building. This apartment was brand new and therefore more expensive and it was a one hour walk from my work and my friends. However, it was right next to the place my partner wanted to eventually get a job at. He told me that if we accepted this apartment instead that he would drive me to work every night and since we were going to be paying equitably I would still only be paying around as much as I had at my current apartment at that time. That same day we accepted the offer for the newer, more expensive apartment.

On July 14th we moved into our new apartment, we split the first months rent and deposits evenly, including a pet deposit as we wanted to get a dog, and we did this because at that time he had yet to start his job in Victoria so it would be the following month that we would begin to pay equitably.

About week into living in our new apartment he came home from work one afternoon and asked me for a hug and began crying, I asked him what was wrong and he began to say the he had ruined his life and ruined our life and that he was terribly sorry. When I asked what he meant that was when he told me that he was approximately 40 thousand dollars in debt and that he wouldn’t be able to pay for more than half the bills. I told him that we were a team and together we would look at his finances and figure everything out and get his debt paid off.

August 19th he took me to his family's annual family campout, I met many of his family members, and he made small mentions to me about marriage and kids, the well respected patriarch of his family made a lovely speech welcoming into the family. When we left to return home on August 21st he took my hand in the truck and told me that his heart felt so full, that he had a beautiful girlfriend, an amazing apartment and that he couldn’t ask for anything more.

The evening of August 21st I was sent a message from a woman that I didn’t see until August 23rd that said 'Hey pretty lady! (insert partners name) told me he was in an open relationship and I'm not sure that its true? I really don’t want to encourage cheating..'. I told this woman that we were not in an open relationship and she proceeded to tell me that they had been talking for months and showed me some of their text messages where he said things such as; 'And she isn’t into knowing about my business I can explain better in person but she had some bad stuff happen in her past and we have a good connection just not in the bedroom', 'She had a few horrible things happen to her she has some bad PTSD some times its good some times its bad but sex is hard her (for) her sometimes', 'She is a really smart person and who's (who knows) what she can and cannot offer in a relationship'. I sent my partner screen shots of my conversation with this woman that day while he was at work and he did not respond. When he came home he asked me what I wanted to do, I asked to see the messages and he told me he had already deleted them on his way home. I then told him that I was going to the liquor store and we were going to drink and not talk about it until tomorrow because I needed time. I went and got alcohol, within an hour he was drunk and throwing up in the bathroom and went to bed.

Later that evening when he woke up he was apologizing profusely, crying and hitting him self in the head, screaming into a pillow saying he was so disappointed in him self and that his mother would be too. The following day when I asked him why he did it he told me that he had been thinking about it and he thought he did it because a year after his mother passed away when he was now 18 he began sleeping with two of his mother's best friends, and that the woman he had been talking to was the same age as his mother and that older women were a 'safety blanket' for him. He also said that he was never going to actually sleep with her but that he just liked the idea of it. Having trauma of my own I sympathized with what he went through after his mothers passing. I agreed to try and make things work with the condition that he would get counselling to which he agreed. He never got counselling.

Two weeks later on September 3rd we went to his hometown to visit his family, that evening he told me that when he was talking to his friend who now knew about his infidelity, that he told his friend that I was the woman he would spend the rest of his life with because instead of just condemning him for his actions I was instead asking why it had happened and trying to help him. The following day he was in an unpleasant mood, to the point where he walked out on breakfast in a restaurant and ignored me for most of the day. Part way through the day I decided to take a walk down by the ocean, he tried to call me a couple of times but I did not answer. When I returned to the property he began yelling at me asking me where I went and saying 'this shouldn’t be this hard!' he then through the tape measure he was holding and walked off saying 'take a fucking bus back to Victoria!'. A few minutes later I went down to the house where he was seated in the kitchen, I told him that I didn’t know what was going on with him but that he needed to stop pushing away the people that love him. He apologized for his behaviour and gave me a hug saying he would do better.

That evening as we were laying in bed I told him that I wanted to spend my birthday that was coming up in a few days alone doing some self care. He began yelling at me saying that I wasn’t considering his feelings and he broke up with me. I decided I needed to get out of there at that moment and was ready to walk through the country for hours to the nearest highway to hitchhike home. I went and sat in the truck to charge my phone so I would have a flashlight and eventually realised I was too afraid to make that walk at that time of night alone. I returned to the home where he apologized and told me that I was the love of his life and that he knew it from our very first date when I wrapped my arms around his as he drove me home.

We had intercourse that night, I was not on birth control and he was aware of it, we had many conversations about it and that neither of us had intentions of having a child at that point. Without my consent and without letting me know, he ejaculated inside of me. When he pulled out I asked him if he had, to which he said yes and when I asked why he said 'Because I don’t want to lose you'.

On September 21st I was preparing all our camping gear because later that afternoon I would be leaving to go for a weekend camping trip at a beach near my partner's family property with two of my girlfriends and my partner to celebrate my birthday and my friend's birthday. It was planned weeks in advance that I would be driving up with my two girlfriends and that he would be driving up alone. He arrived home from work an hour before I needed to leave to meet my girlfriends and he told me that he wanted me to drive with him instead of with my friends, I told him I couldn’t because we had already made arrangements and I was supposed to help my girlfriend pack up her vehicle. He began screaming and crying saying that if I couldn’t do this for him it meant that I did not love him. Once again he broke up with me. We loaded my stuff into his truck and as he was taking me to my friends place he asked me to send him all of the photos from our relationship. I told him I would do it when I had time but I wasn't in the space to do it right then. He then asked that I send him a photo I had taken of him so he could change his Facebook picture from one of us to the one he was asking for. Again I told him I would do it later and that if he wanted the photo sooner that it was on my Facebook and he could get it there. He pulled the truck over and began pulling all of my stuff out onto the street yelling at me that if I didn’t send him the picture he would leave me and my stuff there. I sent him the picture and he put my stuff back in the truck and took me to my girlfriends.

While on the camping trip he told me that he was moving out. He rented a room in someone's house and would be gone when I returned. When I got home I asked him to come back which he did and gave up the room he had rented by telling the landlord that his 'ex girlfriend' (me) was in the psychiatric ward and that he needed to take care of my apartment for me. The man he rented the room from did not return his damage deposit saying that he didn’t have the money but that he would return the deposit when he rented the room to someone else. Over the next two and half months my partner sent this man several texts with veiled threats and went to his house three separate times threatening to smash out all of his windows if he didn’t pay him. The last time he went to threaten him he returned home and told me what had happened, I told him I was disappointed because we had talked about getting his money back in a civil and legal way. Later that afternoon while I was with him he received a call from someone asking about the incident, my partner denied everything and was told he wouldn’t be contacted again about the incident. When he got off the phone he told me he was still going to do it, I told him he shouldn’t especially since the man had texts to prove that my partner had been threatening him. My partner said that he knew people and ways to do it without the police finding out.

On September 23rd he texted me saying 'I want to get tattoos today if your (you're) in' 'I love you and I'm going to spend the rest of my life with you your (you're) my sole (soul) mate'. That day we got matching 'I love you' tattoos in each others writing. Later that same day I went to take some money out of my savings tin I kept in my closet and found 600 dollars missing, he confessed that he took the money to rent the room during my birthday weekend but that it wasn’t stealing since I had told him previously that if he ever needed to borrow money that I would help him.

Between then and October 5th I would end up catching him having several other conversations with women that were less than appropriate. Each time he would apologize saying it would never happen again and I would believe him. During those weeks anytime I would ask to talk about our relationship he would immediately begin screaming and break up with me for reasons such as not cooking enough, or cleaning enough, or not having a routine which he said I was 'incapable of' and tell me that I am a 'monster' but also that I am 'perfect' and that I was like 'heroin' to him to then only tell me that he still wanted to be with me. He would always cut me off mid sentence but force me to listen to him by yelling which he told me in a text that 'I have been conditioned my entire life to be yelled at you're the first person I have ever met that communicates like you in my life and I can't be it or be around it with out feeling a little bit casted away'.

On October 5th I wanted to try and change the mood a bit so I woke up early and told him I would have a surprise for him when he got home. I went and got all his favourite snacks and drinks and built a blanket fort in the bedroom and made him dinner. Half an hour before he was due to get home I went to do the dishes and found a cup with pink lipstick on it, I looked in the garbage and found a used condom. When he got home I showed him his surprise then handed him the cup with the used condom in it and asked him to leave. He left and while he was gone I posted on my Facebook that he had been cheating on me, I deleted the post five minutes after posting it however it was up long enough that someone saw it and sent it to an ex partner of his. His ex partner then sent me a message saying that for several years she dealt with the exact same type of behaviour. An hour or so later he returned to our home and he yelled 'you really want to know what happened? It was a tranny! I've never told anyone that!'. That evening then became about how he was bisexual and that he was 'disgusted' with himself for not being straight rather than it being about the fact that he had cheated on me with someone in our bed while I was at work. Again he kept apologizing and saying that it would never happen again and that he was going to make it up to me and earn my trust back.

On October 10th before taking me to work he told me how much he loved me and that he was glad we were still trying to work things out. After getting to work I called him a couple of times as I usually would on smoke breaks but he never answered. Around an hour later he called me saying that he had fallen asleep. Within the next hour I would get a message from a woman asking if I was dating my partner. I asked her why she was asking and she told me that she had just been at 'his' place and had just had sex with him and that he had told her that his ex girlfriend just hadn’t come to collect her things yet but she found it odd that all of my stuff was in the apartment and so she tracked me down on Facebook. I told her he was my boyfriend and that it was in fact our apartment. I immediately sent the messages to my partner and he began denying all of it. I asked the woman for details that he wouldn’t be able to deny. She was able to describe everything in my apartment and bedroom, the type of condom he used, and how he was during intercourse. He still not only denied all of it but texted me 'I'm just fucking mad that she lied I want to beat this bitch with a fucking pipe' 'do your self a favour and stop fucking messaging her' 'I'm so fucking mad' I don’t know what to say I just want to make this better and I can't' 'I want to heart (hurt) this girl for doing this'. He never admitted to sleeping with her.

The next day he texted me 'I know I deserve what I'm feeling I just feel sick with my self' 'and I don’t like the man I em (am) I know I can do better I just don’t know where this is coming from, I know I'm stressed out but why is it coming out this way I'm so sorry sky I hurt you now and I'm (in) the past'. Again I stayed with him except this time on the condition I could look at his phone. When I looked at his phone I found out that on February 17th, seven days after asking me to be his girlfriend, when he was on an out of town job he had another woman living with him that also thought she was his girlfriend, he had slept with several other women, slept with two paid escorts, had sent one of my full nude photos to a friend of his, and while I was on my birthday camping trip he had one of his ex girlfriends staying in my apartment with him and he had taken a video of them having sex in our bed which he sent to a friend. Over the next while I would continually catch him messaging more women, often saying he was messaging his boss and changing the women's names to men's names in his phone.

On November 4th I had plans to go to a concert with my best friend, just prior to leaving my partner begged me to cancel with my friend and to take him instead. I told him I didn’t feel right doing that. He began screaming and crying saying that if I loved him I wouldn’t go without him. I tried to get him a ticket as well but they were sold out at this point. While I was at the concert he sent me messages saying things like 'I really need to talk to you when you get home I feel like absolute garbage right now and I'm really tired of feeling like this'. I left the concert early and told him I was coming home; he was waiting for me outside when I arrived which was unusual. When we got into the apartment he broke up with me again saying I was a monster and a terrible girlfriend among other things. As I went to go leave the apartment at approximately 12:20am on November 5th, I told him in spite that I wouldn’t be keeping his secret about his sexuality. I got to the elevator on our floor and he came out of the apartment completely naked running down the hall, he ripped my rain jacket open, grabbed the top of my coat with both hands, I then reached for the door to the stairwell. He pulled me into the stairwell and held me over the stairs screaming in my face 'who are you going to tell?!' each time I responded saying 'let me go'. After asking 4 or 5 times who I was going to tell he let me go and I ran down the stairs. A few days later he admitted to me that for a moment he considered throwing me down those stairs.

Fast forward to the end of November, when I first starting dating this man he asked me 'how can I win you over' and I told him that it wasn’t really about winning me over but that it was about winning over my best friend. Since I haven’t had contact with any family members in nearly a decade my best friend is my only family. For weeks he would talk excitedly about getting to meet my best friend and eventually after a few months I introduced the two. After the introduction my partner told me that he now understood our relationship and that my best friend really was like my brother. They would even hang out some times with out me which I thought was really nice. However, as time went on my partner began hating my best friend saying he hated the value my friend held in my life. Slowly over time I would talk to and see my friend less and less. On several occasions my partner asked that I stopped being friends with him entirely and at one point it became a condition of our relationship that I were to have no contact with my friend. And any time I went to see any of my other friends he would scream and cry saying that I was making him feel lonely if I went and would beg me to stay or threaten to end the relationship.

Every year for the last 7 years I have gone to my friends Christmas work party, my partner was very upset by this. My partner told me that I could go to my friends' birthday party but not the Christmas party. The week leading up to my friends' birthday party I asked my partner several times if he wanted to come to which he declined but said he wanted to pick me up from the event. On November 26th I went to the party, at midnight I messaged my partner that I was soon to be ready for a ride, he didn’t reply. I sent another message a half hour later with again no reply and I took a taxi home. When I got home I was afraid he had ignored my messages because he was mad at me. So I sat on the couch for an hour then eventually went to bed. When I got into the bed my partner woke up abruptly saying 'Sky?! Sky?! Why didn’t you message me?!' I told him that I had but he didn’t answer so I took a taxi. He immediately began screaming and accusing me of being with other men sexually at the party. He continued coming in and out of the bedroom screaming. He then grabbed my friends' guitar that was next to the bed and took it to the living room and began smashing it then went to bed on the couch.

The next morning, I woke up to a note apologizing and my friend woke up to a text from my partner apologizing for breaking his guitar and saying he would replace it. I didn’t speak to him for the entirety of that day, in the past he had done things to harm me but this was the first time he had done something to a friend of mine.

The following day I asked him if he wanted to talk, he again apologized and said that he wanted to be with me, that night we had sex and he again ejaculated inside of me without warning and without consent and when I asked him why he replied 'its my birthday gift to my self'. The next night, November 29th, he came home from work and we had sex again, once again he did not pull out and when I asked him why he was doing that he said it was because he figured I would just get an abortion if I got pregnant. I went and had a shower and when I returned to the bedroom he was on his phone and quickly changed the screen. I asked who he was texting and he said his boss, I asked to see his phone which he agreed but I could see him deleting things before handing it over. As I held his phone a text came through saying something along the lines of 'ill head over after 7, what's your addy?'. When I asked who it was he said it was probably a wrong number. I told him I wasn’t an idiot and knew that wasn’t true to which he admitted he was going to have someone over but he was going to cancel however he just hadn’t gotten the chance to do it yet. I messaged the number back saying it was his girlfriend and that she would not be receiving our address. At this time, I had to leave for work. He began apologizing and I told him it was not the time to talk because I didn’t have anything nice to say, we went to his car in silence. As he drove me to work I asked to see his phone. He gave me his phone and again I found countless messages with other women about meeting up for sex. I also found several messages where he was telling women that I was a monster of a human being and that he hated me. As I began to read out his messages to him he began screaming at me that it was my fault, he rammed his car into a curb and yelled at me to get out. He drove up the street then came back apologizing and asked me to get in, I ignored him. He then drove up the street then parked as he realized I still had his phone, he came towards me telling me to give him his phone. I threw it up the street and then ran to my work. When he got home he sent me a video apologizing and sent me screen shots of messages he had sent the other women saying that he wasn’t going to talk to them anymore and wanted to be with me and loved me.

That night, November 29th, at work I typed up a letter telling him that I was leaving him, I got home in the morning on November 30th, after he had gone to work and went to bed hiding the letter in my purse. I woke up before he got home placed the letter out for him to see and went to my work 5 hours early to be safe.

The following night he told me he was moving out and I said thank you. The next day he took most of his belongings and when I asked him why he had done everything he did, he began blaming it on me, that I wasn’t a good partner for various reasons, he said that he never loved me, that he didn’t care about the cheating, and that it didn’t bother him that he cheated. I asked him if he had any compassion to which he replied 'for you? None'. I then called a friend to stay with me as he was refusing to give me his keys.

The next day, December 3rd, he came and took the rest of his belongings. After he finally had nothing left in the apartment I looked around and found that he had thrown all my family photos around in our storage, bent my vibrator in half, and had smashed my iPad which he knew was the only item I had to sell to be able to afford rent on my own the next month.

The following day, December 4th, I called the non emergency police line and filled a report for the physical abuse. That night I received a call from an officer who asked me what had happened, he told me he would contact my partner then he would do a formal interview with me. He called me back later that evening saying that my partner had a very different version of events, that my partner expressed that he was very much done with me and therefor he would not be looking any further into charges nor would I be getting a peace bond. He was however going to have my partner return the keys for the apartment to the police station the following day. December 6th I spoke with someone who was aware of my on going situation. December 7th that person gave me a number of a police officer who they thought may be able to provide me with more support, I called that officer that day, he looked into the file and told me he couldn’t do anything for me because my partners record was one of the cleanest he had ever seen without so much as a traffic violation. Both officers expressed that my ex partner had said that he was so done with me that I didn’t have anything to be concerned about. However, I've watched my partner hold onto anger towards people for months on end, I listened to him tell me all the ways he wanted to injure other people or cause damage to their property.

In summary, my income has been cut in half, my bills have more than doubled, I was moved further away from my friends and community, I was emotionally abused and manipulated, I was physically abused. I have missed 96 hours and 45 minutes of work due to stress since the first time I found out he was cheating on August 23rd up until the time he moved out of our apartment. My internet has been cut off and my power is soon to be cut off. My personal property has been damaged beyond repair. I live in constant fear, I've changed my phone number, I've the routes I walk to and from work, I have people stay at my apartment while I work to make sure he doesn’t show up and harm my animals, I duck tape my door lock when ever I'm home alone, I have night terrors that he is breaking in, I look out my peep hole every time I hear the elevator ding, I'm immediately anxious when I see a vehicle that looks like his. I know that many people will question why I am making my experience public and question my motives for doing this. I would like to note that I have not used his name, or named his home town, nor have I named anyone else involved. This is not about him. Am I angry? Yes, in fact I am livid. And the reason for my anger is that so many people, women in particular are going through or have gone through what I am going through. It took me months before I even realized I was being abused and by then I was too scared to leave, because I felt like all I had was him regardless of how I was being treated and even if I had the courage to leave I was financially stuck. Many people will ask why I didn’t leave earlier or why I didn’t report the physical violence on the night of the attack, emotional abuse in nature makes the victim feel like these are not safe or viable options.

I am making my story public; I am opening my self up to the scrutiny of other people because this needs to change. Abusers will often not change their behaviour and they will continue to abuse more and more people as time goes on. I don’t want vengeance, I want change, I want reform, I want better protection and legal options for victims of this type of abuse. Apart from the actual moment of physical abuse on November 5th, I have text messages, bank statements, emails, work time logs, and other pieces of proof that every statement I have made that is associated with a date in this recount has happened. What I do not have, what other victims of abuse do not have is the law on their side to help them rebuild their lives but I need help, I am hoping that someone somewhere who reads this will be able to help me. I am aware of Bill C-202 is ‘An Act to amend the Criminal Code (controlling or coercive conduct)’ however I have only become aware of it after hours of online searches for anything to help me, there needs to be a bigger awareness and discussion about this. This is all of our problem, I believe every person knows someone who has been emotionally abused in a partnership whether they are aware of it or not. And I am not saying that I am a perfect person, I have moments that I am not proud of from our relationship but there is a difference between regrettable behaviour and behaviour that has a long lasting and damaging financial, physical, emotional and psychological impact on a person.